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by Sephypsycologist



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Mention of alcohol, again not actual drugs but????, it's not real booze but????, mention of weed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 21:03:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18039002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sephypsycologist/pseuds/Sephypsycologist
Summary: You agree to room with Gaster after he's released from therapy (necessary because VOID TRAUMA)A late night drinking session later and you find him like this.





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You slip into Gaster’s room as you shut the door behind you.

You hadn’t minded being roommates with a monster, and you definitely understood dealing with trauma, even if yours wasn’t the same magnitude as centuries trapped in a void.  
But you knew he needed you right now from the tingling wave of magic you’d felt as he began having an episode.

“Oh gosh, G, you really are having a bad time right now, huh?” you murmur, flipping on the lights.

His computer is on, some confusing mathematics on the screen, and he’s curled up in a beanbag nearby with an empty bottle of Echo Flower wine on the floor. Monster spirits were water combined with magic and an underground exclusive flavoring. Echo Flower wine was infused with calming magic and the flowers themselves had the tendency to bring up memories.

The fact he’d drained a whole bottle of this particular spirit meant he’d forgotten about the properties of Echo Flowers. Poor guy.

You slide in next to him and are instantly clung to as he shakes, the rattling of his bones muffled from the blackened magic that had filled in the spaces since he’d returned from the void. The doctor was shirtless, as it looked like he’d tried to go to sleep since he had his pajama pants on, and you saw the dark indigo glow of the luminescent wine combining with his natural purple magic.

“Hey, it’s okay,” You held him close even so, knowing Gaster needed to be grounded and pulled out of the flashbacks he was no doubt having. “think about what you can smell. Feel my body heat. My skin? You aren’t back there for real. You’re okay, you’re on the surface, you’re home.”

He nodded, still shaking, but the two white dots of his eyes came back into focus, counting your fingers by running them along each one. “It’s real…you’re real. I’m okay.”

“That’s it, G.” You murmur, “Just repeat that. Now, this was probably triggered by the echo flowers in that wine. Did you forget they make memories resurface?”

Another nod.

“Okay. That’s okay, we just know not to do that again. I’ll remind you when we go shopping, alright?”

“okay.” His voice was raspy and quiet as usual, but you knew he was listening.

“Good. We’ll just have to ride this out right now, but it won’t happen again. I’ll stay right here with you till the wine runs its course. It’s okay.” It really was. You hadn’t wanted to go to bed yet, anyway, and helping your roomie was fine with you.

Despite being taller and stronger than you, Gaster cowered in your arms, eye lights shaky as he scanned the room to try and keep himself in the present.

“Okay, G, let’s go through more senses. What can you taste right now?” you were just going through grounding exercises your own therapist when you first started therapy, but it helped Gaster so it seemed alright.

“Mostly the wine…ugh, I can’t believe I forgot…”

“G, it’s been a long time since you’ve had any sort of drinks. You just now got cleared to only have weekly sessions; it’s natural you’re rusty with life away from the hospital, especially in your case.” You weren’t a drinker yourself apart from the monster stuff (cause alcohol is nasty smelling and tasting, plus you don’t like acting stupid) so you hadn’t got a lot of practice with drinks either.

“I….Yes but…”

“G, look at me.” He’d started shifting his focus again and the shaking returned.

“Mn?” He snapped his head back around so much there was a ‘crack’ like joints popping. This was the air being forced out of the connections of gunk between his bones. It made you wince.

“You’re drifting again. Why don’t you hold on to me, and the two of us will make some grilled cheese or something to get some matter in there to soak up some of the echo magic?” This was a trick I’d learned from some of my monster friends out in the world; eating human food would dull and shorten the effects of monster drinks. A fun way to not be lost in your own memories for hours when you needed to do something quick.

“Yes, good….yes.” He was fairly draped over your body at this point, but you could move him easy enough. Bones are bones, and the black void goo between them was literally weightless. “Just…please don’t leave me.”

“I’m not going anywhere, you gangly marimba.” You murmur the sentence with all the warmth you had. You honestly adored Gaster, best roommate you’ve ever had and by far the sweetest person you’d ever met. It was so nice to have someone who liked nerding out, even if it was over vastly different things. You had theme park history, he had magical physics.

His shaking eases as he gets into the cooking. You’d only meant a light snack, but another side effect of echo flowers is heavy munchies (hence why it’s also the monster equivalent of weed despite not being harmful at all). So now you were getting a full “tomato soup and grilled cheese” meal. Gaster made soup. That’s what he did, pretty much exclusively, when it came to cooking. He made different soup, sure, but just soup. He was helpless for most other things not EXTREMELY basic.

You found that endearing. So you didn’t mind making the sandwiches while he was busying himself.

“Do you want to watch movies while we eat?” I ask, not knowing if he was ready for that much visual or audio stimulation.

“No…but I wouldn’t object to a book?” Gaster was very old school. Monsters don’t visibly age as fast as humans, so it was hard for you to remember he was…well, at least older than you by at least a bit. Old enough to have two sons who were in your general peer group (or two brothers? Friends? He hadn’t introduced them and you knew he had mixed memories from seeing different timelines). But apparently, he’d been voided at around your age, but….?

It was complicated.

He liked books, though. And you had spades of those.

“Alright. We were about halfway through Chamber of Secrets, right?” You and Gaster would eat and hand the book off to read aloud, switching on the page turns. You had gotten paperback copies of all the Harry Potter books when his therapist (who had interviewed you to make sure you knew what you were getting into accepting him as your roommate) suggested helping him catch up on popular culture and that he loved to read. You’d played this reading game with the flimsy kids books you’d had as a child, together with your parents, so you thought it would be a good idea to bond and help your new roomie.

Harry Potter was a favorite of yours, and you’d found that Gaster liked it, too. Mostly because of Hagrid. And because he wished he could be a teacher. He didn’t want to go back into hard science after his accident, but teaching he thought he could do. You were happy to agree with him, and thus kids lit was much in demand.

So you two had a good meal and finished off a few chapters. Then everything caught up to Gaster as the magic dissipated. “Oh….oh my…” He looked a bit dizzy as you came back from putting up the dishes.

“G? You okay?” He tended to get this way every so often from his skewed vision (skull damage is no joke to a skeleton!) but it worried you nonetheless.

“F-fine.” He eased himself down on the sofa, “But I think I’ll be sleeping here tonight. Ooh yes….haven’t been this buzzed since college….or was that when sans was born?”

“Ah.” Buzzed for monsters meant magic overload. They literally felt their bodies buzzing with the energy and it could cause all sorts of symptoms. For Gaster, it seemed to be dizziness and a surprisingly dainty case of the hiccups (complete with pink bubbles randomly forming around his head!). “Well, try and get some rest. The sun will be out tomorrow, once again, and I know you hate to miss it.”

“Mmhm,” he pulled the spare blanket off the back of the sofa and snuggled one of the throw pillows. He’d be up once the first ray of sunshine hit his face from the blinds, no doubt, but it probably would be with nightmares and sobs thanks to the lingering echo flowers. You’d handle that when it came, but for now he could rest and you’d feel confident in going back to your own bed.

Even if you’d probably wake up with him in it.

Again.


End file.
